


First Kisses

by bidennisreynolds



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Christmas, First Kiss, Fluff, High School, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Just kids being kids, M/M, charmacden rights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 15:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16957053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bidennisreynolds/pseuds/bidennisreynolds
Summary: Mac, Charlie and Dennis all think that they’re each other’s first kisses because the gang have never been the best at communication, even when they were kids.





	1. Mac and Charlie

**Author's Note:**

> just a soft, young, charmac/macdennis/charden fic based on a tumblr post i made & had to let out

1987

3:27 PM

On a Thursday

Philadelphia, PA.

It’s Christmas Eve and Charlie and Mac are throwing rocks at passing trains for the 6th year in a row. It’s become a tradition like any other; they don’t even have to plan it by this point, they simply both show up at the same spot at the same time they’ve been for years and continue this peculiar ritual. Neither of them say much.

“Is Uncle Jack visiting this year?” Mac asks and the silence that follows isn’t deafening like it might be to some, but telling. Mac has always known what the pauses mean when it comes to Charlie.

“We’re going to be eleven next year,” Charlie says instead, after another train passes. Mac nods, feeling important in the way that children do when they think they have the world figured out. It puts Charlie at ease the way a comforting pat on the shoulder from a parent should, but he finds himself collapsing to sit down in the dust anyway.

“We’re practically teenagers,” Mac announces, plopping down on the floor next to his friend, crossing his legs so that his knee brushes Charlie’s. It’s comforting and Charlie doesn’t understand why, but it’s appreciated.

“Yeah.”

There’s more silence, filled eventually with the next train rolling past, which neither of the boys attempt to pellet with stones.

“Charlie?” Mac asks and Charlie turns to face him, because knows Mac needs to know he has his attention when he uses that tone. It’s needy and whiney and a tad hesitant - how kids sound when they’re scared that others will mock them for what comes next.

“Do you think we should get our first kisses out of the way?” Mac’s not looking at Charlie anymore but down at his hands as he tries to pick the dirt from the floor out from under his fingernails.

“Sure, yeah dude,” Charlie’s voice is higher than it usually is and he stops watching Mac and starts watching the ground, “What, like, with each other?”

It’s at this point that Charlie feels Mac’s hand on the back of his neck, fingers threading through the strands of hair at the nape of his neck. His final thought before his lips meet Mac’s is that he’s glad his mom always makes him have a bath before Christmas.

Neither of them have done this before and it shows. Mac all but smashes their faces together and their lips meet by chance for a few seconds before Mac lets go like Charlie’s skin burns.

They don’t look at each other but rather at where their knees are still touching. They don’t move apart, and eventually Charlie breaks the silence with a cough.

“Well, at least that’s out of the way,” He laughs a little but Mac doesn’t join him so he cuts it short. “We can’t tell anyone,” Mac replies after slightly too long. The silence that follows this is one that creeps into unsettling territory.

“Yeah, no, I know! Of course,” Charlie responds but he doesn’t quite know and he doesn’t think he’s allowed to ask.

“Promise?” Mac offers his outstretched pinky and Charlie looks up to meet his gaze. He nods solemnly and links his finger with Mac.

“I swear.”


	2. Mac and Dennis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac & Dennis  
> Mac, Charlie and Dennis all think that they’re each other’s first kisses because the gang have never been the best at communication, even when they were kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a soft, young, charmac/macdennis/charden fic based on a tumblr post i made & had to let out

1991

11:48pm

On a Friday

Philadelphia PA.

It’s a cold October evening and a pair of fourteen year old boys are snuggled under the covers of a single bed in the Philadelphia suburbs. Dennis and Mac are newly friends, after Dennis recently moved into town and fell for this rough and tumble karate enthusiast with a penchant for weed. They’re whispering secrets to each other, as teens do under the protection of dim lighting and a joint shared not so long ago, passed back and forth as the pair had lent out of the window watching the stars.

Dennis is laughing quietly at a story Mac had just divulged about train tracks and cigarette butts and that short, illiterate boy he can’t remember the name of when he decides to shift closer. He rests his hand on Mac’s waist and their noses brush against each other and suddenly he’s not laughing anymore.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Dennis asks the darkness, and he can feel Mac nod and Mac’s breath ghost over his lips, sending a chill down his spine, “I’ve never officially kissed someone before.”

He can no longer feel Mac’s breath on his skin and thinks about shifting away when he feels Mac shift and a hand pulling at his t-shirt, urging him closer.

“Me either,” Mac says and it’s the hand on his shirt that convinces Dennis to close the gap between them and press his lips against Mac’s, sighing into it like returning home. He moves against Mac’s mouth for a few seconds and is met with neither resistance nor enthusiasm. He opens his mouth a touch and flicks a tongue out tentatively and like a switch, Mac’s hand goes from gripping his t-shirt to pushing at his chest.

“Woah, that’s gay, dude!” Mac says as an explanation, which has Dennis in fits of giggles, leaning his forehead against Mac’s shoulder. If he was paying more attention, he might have felt the ghost of a hand trace his spine.

He isn’t so he doesn’t and lets go of Mac’s waist, shifting away.

“Sorry,” He says, still smiling and he doesn’t mean it. He feels the way Mac is shaking through the mattress but it doesn’t concern him the way it would some; Dennis is running on the high of a first kiss.

“It’s fine,” Mac whispers and he’s out of breath in a way that makes Dennis think that it’s either more than fine or definitely not fine but he’s too giddy to care.

They fall asleep wrapped in each other’s warmth and when Dennis wakes up to see the sunlight gracing Mac’s sleeping face he’s traded the excited buzzing in his stomach for a sinking feeling. He shakes Mac who groans and blinks awake, offering a shy smile.

“Morning,” He says with a sigh and Dennis feels his cheeks get warm. It’s this that scares him and leads to the words he says next.

“You have to swear you won’t tell anyone about last night. Not even that Dirtgrub kid you hang around with all the time,” Dennis hisses, anger twisting his face into a shape Mac hasn’t seen before; it’s a side to the new kid he hasn’t seen before.

“I swear.”


	3. Charlie and Dennis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie & Dennis  
> Mac, Charlie and Dennis all think that they’re each other’s first kisses because the gang have never been the best at communication, even when they were kids.

1992

2:04am

On a Sunday

Philadelphia PA.

It’s the fourth of July. Technically the fifth now, in the early morning, and two teenage boys are passing a joint back and forth on a roof in the middle of the July heat. Dennis has had a difficult year; moving schools, homes, trying (and failing) to be cool. Not to mention the Incident in the library but he’s getting high and so the memory passes as quickly as it comes. Mac is away at some kind of church camp, so Dennis and Charlie have decided to band together to make it through the long summer ahead of them.

They’re not exactly the best of friends, and so when Charlie suggests they play a game a third of the way into the joint, Dennis jumps at the chance. Getting high isn’t exactly helping to combat the faux sensations of an adult pair of hands on his hips the way it usually does; he needs more of a distraction.

“Truth or dare?”

A few rounds in and the two are exceptionally high, the joint is almost done and Dennis finds himself shifting closer so that he can brush Charlie’s thigh with his hand and pretend it’s an accident. Dennis has always found that things with boys are a lot easier than with girls, and Charlie might be the safest person he could fall into the arms of right now. Especially with his head spiralling the way it currently is.

“Truth or dare, Charlie?”

“Truth?” Charlie replies, leaning towards Dennis to pass the joint back. Charlie’s very aware that Dennis is Mac’s friend; he has known this since the day Mac didn’t walk home with him and then called his house phone that night and had started gushing about this new boy who had just moved into town. About the soft curls that framed his face, his blinding smile, the way his tongue would pass over his bottom lip when he was nervous.

Finally, Charlie could now definitely tell why Mac was so infatuated.

“Have you ever kissed anyone?” Dennis asks, tilting his head to the side but his tongue flicks out like a snake to wet his bottom lip and Charlie thinks that if this were a cartoon, they’d both be performing over the top nervous gulps of air.

“No,” He’s not sure why he says it, but technically he’s not actually lying. When Mac had kissed him it had definitely been Mac doing the kissing of someone, and to be honest, Charlie wasn’t sure if it’d even count as a real first kiss given the length of time and-

“Me neither,” Came Dennis’ giggly and breathless reply, before he put a hand on Charlie’s knee and leaned in to press their lips together. Charlie feels his arm raising on auto pilot to run his fingers through the hair at the nape of Dennis’ neck, eliciting hum from the back of the taller’s throat.

They’re lips move wildly out of sync with each other after that, the way teens do when they’re excited and inexperienced: tongues awkwardly brushing each other, teeth knocking together. Charlie eventually breaks the kiss with a spluttering laugh which Dennis joins in with moments later, and then the two fall into each other’s arms, laughing for no reason other than that they’re teens.

They promise later that evening, perhaps after another fumbling make out session or two, that they can’t let anyone else know about this. Charlie knows it would break Mac’s heart - to know that Charlie had been the first person Dennis had kissed. Dennis doesn’t want Mac to know that he had kissed both of them - he’d definitely think he was gay then. Mac, somewhere in the country, huddled in a dorm room holding onto his Bible, wonders if God could forgive him for his past homosexual encounters.

Mac, Dennis and Charlie all think that they are each other’s first kisses.

**Author's Note:**

> follow @ goldendirtgrub.tumblr.com


End file.
